Handful of Nothing

N810 image view, but you can also see the new task navigator, and a much better theme

This morning I saw the pictures of the brand new Nokia Internet Tablet on engadget. I was quite happy with the industrial design. It looks so much better than the N800 and it’s delightful to see the series evolution. Also the theme looks a lot sweeter than the previous “glowing” one. Of course not everything is heaven and looking from the pictures I can start talking about things that could be messed again in this released :

1) Camera looks again facing straight there on the left. This put the user in a not so comfortable position for video calling. You either tilt the device a little bit to the side or you try not bothering and do the call a little bit to the side your self. (can be a charm, come on)

2) Looks like the bevel framing the screen still high enough to bother a full finger usage BUT looks like wider.. so can be easier to you! Yeah!

3) The fullscreen keyboard with that HUGE backspace button still there. :/

4) The keyboard is really to close of the upper part that slides up. It’s not so easy to type on that :/ [4]

5) Still no centralized synchronization / media optimization software.

But of course good things:

1) Looks like at least some basic 4-way + 2 or more buttons gaming will be possible (while demanding a little bit of dexterity)

2) The whole body looks just a lot more compact and a little bit thinner than the n800 without that quasimodo hunchback. Cool.

3) if there’s really a built in GPS I’m on it (read my iphone review to understand more. Actually I will change to a link once I publish it)

4) The docking position appears to go even lower. That’s great for watching movies on today’s very very reduced user space on planes

5) The arrows (so criticized) were replaced by a small list (drop down menu) icon, and it’s not only on the application title, showing you that the menu is there, but also the same picture in the full qwerty keyboard.

6) That’s also nice to see: simplified (tray) and more lively(task navigator) not Tango-styled icons, in menu and also for the system tray. Thank you! and sorry but TANGO SUCKS (not the project, but the icon look and feel. 100% dull)

So let’s keep also an eye on this, and while this doesn’t come out check out some real life pictures from gizmodo :
1 2 3 4

And for sure the comment that was more then expected:

“An internet and media tablet with 2GB memory and 4 hour battery life for $479? Yeah, I know you should be able to get that a little cheaper, but whats the advantage over an unlocked 16GB iPod Touch for $399? Yeah the keyboard is nice, but the iPod is much sleeker, better battery life, MUCH better storage, I imagine better UI for media stuff…”
Click here to compare size with the iphone

He’s right in the better media UI, a lot more storage, a better browsing experience(only if we exclude flash) more battery. But he should also consider that :
exclude flash what is not possible nowdays in the web, so the N8xx series gives you real web.
You get a real GPS, not some “mockup”
You get a more flexible platform in sense of each kind of media and a good number of supported third party application
**you’ll get Canola 2.0 that will for sure be enough to satisfity the ipod UI need =) ***I wish***

So, I would advise the following : if you like tweaking, and is a power user, Nokia may suite you better. If you praise good UI experience and a descomplicated but “locking to certain applications” desktop to device experience you should go the apple way.

About Canola, we cannot say if the tearing problem is going to happen until we have a device, but if nothing was changed on the hardware side will be really sad :/. Apart from that it will be quite good to use the slide keyboard, maybe the smaller frame on screen, clean design, brighter screen, and of course an updated, optimized version of the Maemo platform.